After I had hastily sketched the panorama with hands turned blue with cold, inserting the names the guide was able to give me, we hurried down the slopes of detritus, partially covered with snow, on the south side of the pass. In the valley bottom, with its patches of ice, we mounted our horses again, and met three mounted Tibetans driving before them eight loose horses. As soon as they caught sight of us they turned aside and made a great detour to avoid us. We supposed that they belonged to a band of robbers, who wished to escape with their booty by untrodden paths.
It was delightful this evening to sit at length in the warmth of the camp-fire. In silent meditation my eyes swept from the rocky crests, brightly lighted by the moon, down to the dark shadowy depths of the valley, where there were only wolves crouching in their holes. It seemed as though all belonged to me; as though I had marched into this land a conqueror at the head of victorious legions, and had crushed all opposition. Oh, what splendid legions! Five-and-twenty ragged fellows from Ladak, ten lean jades, and about twenty worn-out yaks. And yet I had succeeded! Marius could not have been prouder of the triumphs he achieved in the war against Jugurtha than I was when I had won my first victory over the “Trans-Himalaya” at the Sela-la, that Sela-la which, now bathed in moonlight, seemed to us the extreme outpost on the limits of boundless space.
Our march on January 29 was pleasant. We were sheltered from the wind in the deep valley, travelled towards the sun, and felt the first touch of the approaching spring. We rode at first towards the east-south-east, but gradually made a curve round to the south. Just at the bend the valley Tumsang runs in, and in the background we again caught a glimpse of a part of the great range we crossed at the Sela-la. Innumerable valleys such as ours must descend from the crest more or less parallel to it. The valley becomes broader, and the ice strip of the Sele-nang winds along the middle. We see no tents, but places where they are pitched in summer, and some manis are erected for the edification of travellers. Camp No. 118 is pitched in an expansion of the valley called Selin-do.
During the past days we had often remarked how desirable it would be if we could hire some yaks from the nomads. Our own were exhausted and kept us back, and in the high country with its abundant detritus, where we were now travelling, their hoofs became sorer every day. As long as the land lay open before us we must make all haste we could. Delay might be dangerous, but the yaks marched as though they had a log at their heels. We saw no tents in Selin-do, but Namgyal came in the evening with two Tibetans he had met in a side valley. They were willing to provide us with 25 yaks, if they were paid a tenga (about 5½ d.) for every day’s march, and they reckoned eight days’ march for the journey to Yeshung on the Tsangpo. They would accompany us themselves only for one day, and insisted that other men should take their place when they turned back. We could not do any better; we should spare our own animals, make longer marches, and obtain good guides as well.
In the evening we received a visit from seven well-armed riders in search of a band of robbers who had stolen several horses from them. We informed them of the party we had met the day before and they rode off, thanking us warmly, up the valley.
January 30. In the morning our new friends turned up with the yaks; when all was in order we found that we possessed only eighteen loads of the heavy baggage with which we set out from Leh. Our last two guides were paid, and immediately set out for the Sela-la.
Immediately below camp No. 118 the Selin-do valley unites with the Porung valley, along which we again ascended to the south-east. I was surprised that our guides tramped up to higher ground again, but they followed a plainly marked path, while the valley that we left on the right seemed to slope down to the west-south-west and south-west. They said that it debouched into the valley of the My-tsangpo, a northern tributary of the Yere-tsangpo (the upper Brahmaputra). I had afterwards an opportunity of ascertaining that their statements were correct. But now, on first crossing the country, the arrangement of the mountain ranges and watercourses was ill-defined and confusing to me. At every camp I interrogated Tibetans who seemed reliable, and made them draw small maps with their fingers in the sand, which I copied into my diary. But the map changed every day, even if the chief lines remained the same.
From the point where we began to ascend again a desolate chaos of mountains is visible towards the south-west. On the right bank of the Porung several warm springs well up from the pebble bed, containing sulphurous water at a temperature of 127.9° and filling basins in which the hot steaming water simmers and bubbles. The place is called simply Tsaka-chusen, or “The Hot Salt Water.” The terraces of the valley indicate powerful erosive action. Side valleys run in on both sides; sometimes we cross the frozen stream, sometimes pass over steep mountain spurs. At a bend in the way we meet a party of armed riders who are on the way to Chokchu, a country west of the Dangra-yum-tso.
We come to an expansion in the valley, a very important spot, for here several valleys converge to a gigantic focus of erosion in this sea of wild mountains. The largest is the Terkung-rung, which, joined by a whole series of side valleys, descends from the main crest of the Pabla in the north-east. The track through the valley passes several large summer pastures. I made a long halt on a broad rocky projection with a mani to get my bearings in this extremely interesting country. Here, too, we met a mounted party, which was in pursuit of a freebooter who had eloped with another man’s wife—just as with us. The injured husband was in the party and looked very furious. Then we met a caravan of 55 yaks laden with great bales of Chinese brick tea from Lhasa, which they were carrying to the Chokchu province. A dozen dark bare-footed men followed the animals, singing and whistling, spinning woollen thread with the help of vertical rotating spools, or engaged with their prayer mills. They hired their yaks, and were to exchange them for fresh animals at Selin-do. They had also 50 sheep with them, carrying small loads of barley. The farther we advanced the more lively became the traffic.